I kept my visit short - just rubbed down the patching with some fine sand paper and applied primer.

Once back home I applied the final top coat to the external staff beading.

The next step for this is to route in the little grooves to accept the weather proofing strips.

Next I made up one more spacing bracket for the door frame.

I now had to do some very tricky work - shorten the stiles on the door frame.

Frank, who cleaned up the door sill, had told me that it had a twist in it.

I realised that I would not be able to do a proper job of the modification until I dealt with this.

I searched around for a level surface to test for warping.

My work bench had a bow in it. The kitchen table was even worse.

Eventually I realised that I could use my planer.

I adjusted the infeed table so that it was level with the outfeed and determined that there was about 10 mm of twist in the sill timber.

The next step was risky as there was a real chance of destroying the sill timber.

I planed the top surface of the sill in jointer mode and then used this surface to guage the bottom surface in thicknesser mode.

The results were very satisfactory - reducing the sill from 75 mm down to 62 mm.

I will need to repeat some of the cosmetic repairs to the sill timber but it meant that I could now mark up the stiles accurately.

I reassembled the door frame using my pipe clamps to pull all the components up tight.

With everything straight and aligned it was easy to mark the cut positions with confidence.

After this I removed all the pipe clamps, G clamps and F clamps holding the frame temporarily together and placed all the components in to protected storage in anticipation of rain tomorrow.

My next job is to cut each stile to its new length and then to patch up each stile with two part epoxy.

Unfortunately, I was so involved with the tasks at hand that I forgot to take any photographs.

Sunday

I spent most of the day carefully recutting the bottom joints of each stile.

The left most stile has delaminated a section 20 mm wide and 150 mm high.

I could leave it as it is because this part will be covered with architraves. However, it will be much easier to work out the alignment and to insert the polyflash if I repair it.

I have a two litre container of builder's bog, not as good as the two part expoxy that I will use in all visible places, so I used that the fill in the missing timber.

Wednesday

During my lunch break, I used the two part expoxy, as recommended by Frank, to "dam up" underneath the newly exposed crack in the door sill.

I am used to the bog "going off" in twenty minutes - so it was a bit of a surprise having to wait 24 hours for it to cure.

Thursday

I had informed my client that I was starting my Easter break today.

I had already organised with Frank to visit him for some help with the door sill and to pick up a pair of 820 doors.

Frank mixed up a different epoxy, that works as a very thin liquid and we spent about an hour patiently pushing the liquid in to various cracks in the sill.

This will restore any missing strength and will dry clear - so a good structural result and aesthetics.

Friday

I spent the morning mixing and applying two part epoxy to every defect in the door frame timbers.

I spent the afternoon routing 1.75 x 6 mm grooves and inserting weather stripping in to the external staff beading that I intend to install on Saturday.